Feels like forever ago that Jooj and I started building out her modeling portfolio. We’ll get back to it post-apocalypse, but thought I’d feature one of my favorite shots from our last studio session.
After our first shoots — firsts for both of us — Jooj signed with Joy Talent Agency. You may have seen her on QVC. And while I’d love to think the photos played a small part, the honest reality is that her success is the result of hard work and the discipline to take this work seriously, to go after it. All while focusing on her first year of college.
I predict we’ll see Jooj in fashion magazines and billboards in the future.
The sea turtle munched coral 10 feet below me. I had kicked my way into the channel where the reef separated. The calm surface of the water betrayed the omnipresent current heading out to the dark blue of the Pacific.
Located on north shore of the Hawaiian island of Kauai, Tunnels Beach is recognized as one of the best snorkeling spots the island. Palm trees line the shore of the crescent shaped bay, dense jungle and sharp mountain peaks paint the landscape behind them. Tunnels gets its name from the lava tubes that form the underwater caverns just offshore.
Oh yeah, it’s also the surf break where a 14-foot-long tiger shark ripped the left arm off of 13-year old Bethany Hamilton in 2003. Yes, that Bethany Hamilton. The one who’s story Hollywood made the movie “Soul Surfer” about. Two years before I flippered out to roughly the same spot.
Jenn and I were in Kauai for our ten year wedding anniversary. I cashed in airline miles earned over years of business travel to fly first class to the island. Jenn’s cousins, John and Amanda, gifted us their two bedroom condo at the edge of a bluff overlooking the ocean in Princeville.
We fully explored the island in our rented Jeep. We hiked Waimea Canyon. Took a sunset catamaran cruise along the Na Pali Coast. Took a short hike on the Kalalau Trail to Hanakāpīʻai Beach. Entered the Waikanaloa Wet Cave. Took surfing lessons with a local at Kealia Beach. Cooled off with copious amounts of shave ice. And took an epic tour of the island from above.
Jenn reserved our tour with Jack Harter Helicopters. Based on research I did before we left, I was adamant that we reserve a helicopter without doors, knowing this once in a lifetime opportunity to capture this magnificent island from above would be muddied by the plexiglass of the larger tour helicopters.
Which meant taking my first ever helicopter ride in a Hughes 500. Just me, Jenn, the pilot, and a lone backpacker along for the ride. I strapped into the five point harness. Thousands of dollars of camera equipment wrapped tightly around my wrist. Half an ass cheek hanging over the edge of the doorless aircraft out into the void.
Headsets on, the pilot gave the thumbs up and took off, the nose of the helicopter pointed to the ground as we left the solid confines of earth. Up we went. My fear subsided, despite the thousands of feet of empty air between my right ass cheek and terra firma. We banked sharply and flew into collapsed cone of an ancient volcano, the helicopter’s blades slicing frighteningly close to the Jurassic-looking walls. The pilot pointed the nose down, we picked up some speed, he banked again, and we shot out over the Na Pali coastline.
As we came around the island, I noticed the reef. It was where we snorkeled days before. I trained my camera on the blues and greens and shot away. No sharks to be seen from above.
Doylestown has been home to famous musicians for over a century. Legends like Oscar Hammerstein, Pink, Broadway stars like Jenny Lee Stern and Justin Guarini, Blues hall of fame band Little Red Rooster, and White House, Kennedy Center and late night television regular Eric Mintel. One Direction’s Zane Malik recorded cuts from his debut album here. The Weeknd has been sighted around town. And Doylestown’s favorite son, Tim Stack, crooned a Hammerstein ditty from “Oklahoma!” in an Emmy-worthy episode of “Son of the Beach.”
It’s a small town in Pennsylvania dotted with small stages. Places like Puck, Maxwell’s on Main, Chamber’s, and Villa Capri. And Siren Records, a vinyl respite in a digital world.
Joe Montone is a long time employee at the record store. He calls himself a community advocate who transforms audiences through live music, but those of us in town and the surrounding area know him as the person who makes the music happen.
Pre-vinyl, he reached deep into a decade of working with artists, labels and agents across a jukebox of genres, to create the popular Craft Culture series for Maxwell’s on Main, producing more than 500 live music and special events for the venue. He was also the brainchild of the venue’s Double Take Thursday series, where local musical acts performed whole sides of famous albums in competition.
Creating the scene in a town like this would be enough for just about anyone. But Joe is also an artist and performer. We shot this image during an evening shoot in my makeshift home office studio. The photographs served as the backdrop for a poster promoting his “Holy Heat Thunder” classic country show at his old haunt. And then it was back to his advocate roots, organizing and hosting a new evening event at the Michener Art Museum complete with interactive gallery tours and musical performances he curated.
One of my favorite lenses is my 16-35mm. It was my primary lens when our family spent a few weeks in Europe a few years back. It’s a fantastic lens for street photography.
I had it on my Canon 5D Mark III as we walked past Horse Guards in Westminster on our way to Buckingham Palace. As we got near, the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment was getting into formation for the daily changing of the guard ceremony. On camera left was a Squadron of The Life Guards. On the right, a Squadron of The Blues and Royals. These Life Guards have stood guard at Horse Guards, the official entrance to St James and Buckingham Palace, since 1660.
Unlike the more popular changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, Horse Guards is incredibly accessible. I maneuvered my way center and got down low. As the two squadron leaders approached each other for the handoff, I clicked the shutter, my loyal lens racked as wide as it could go to capture the majesty of the scene.
I caught a glimpse of the B&M Baked Bean factory as the bus rolled north toward Augusta. Dormant memories awoke. Memories of a summer family trip to Maine when my dad’s job as a forman at Thatcher Glass — which made the jars B&M’s beans went inside — required him to spend a week on site. The bean factory didn’t leave an impression on me, or so I thought. What did was the putrid smell of paper recycling and outbound tide.
Growing up in New Jersey, the closest we ever got to a rocky shoreline was a Belmar jetty.
It was decades before I visited Maine again. For the past nine years, I’ve traveled to Portland for an annual gathering of craft beer loving technologists. Most years I fly up the Atlantic coast from Philadelphia, taking off from Philly in the late afternoon and watching the most glorious sunsets out of the left side of the small plane’s window as we descend into the Portland jetport.
One year I decided to drive up the coast. I timed the drive so I had time to stop along the way and capture the landscape on camera. My ultimate destination was Portland Head Light. And I timed it to arrive at sunset. I’m proud to say that my calculations were correct, though with very few precious minutes of light to spare.
But that’s not this image.
This photograph is from the next morning. When you have a subject as amazing and iconic as this, and when Mother Nature decides to play nice, you capture all the frames and angles you can.
I arrived just before sunrise and claimed my spot on the cliff just south of the point. Tripod set, I dialed in my exposure and waited. Mother Nature did not dissapoint. The air was frigid, but the rising sun brought with it a welcome kiss of warmth.
I smiled as the good light faded into bright morning sun. Packing up my equipment, I hiked back to my car. Maybe next year I’ll bring my family in the hope of instilling memories to awaken when they get older.
I visited the city of San Diego this week as part of my pay-the-bills, use-that-college-education day job. These are a few of the images I created walking to and from meetings. Each of the images was captured with the new iPhone 11.
Last year I taught The Michener Museum’s first photography workshop for kids. It was part of a pilot project for their summer session. It apparently went well because they asked me to come back and expand on it this summer.
I’ll be conducting four pop-up workshops at the museum. The first is focused on portraits, followed by sessions on abstract photography, still life and wrapping up with my favorite topic: storytelling.
If you have a child who is interested in photography or know someone who does, these should be fun. Registration details are below.
As children, our parents and teachers drilled it into our heads that we should never talk to strangers. I’m sure they meant well.
Luckily, that sage advice of my elders faded away as I got older. Today, camera in hand, I’ll talk to just about anyone. Because everyone’s got a story to tell. Everyone has something in their life that makes them different. That one thing nobody has the nerve to ask them about that makes them interesting.
So it went a couple of years ago when Jenn and I were in New York City with our good friends for a weekend of fun. While exploring The Whitney Museum of American Art, I noticed a man sitting on a bench against the wall while everyone walked by the large scale stained glass installation in front of him. I took a seat next to him.
“It’s an interesting piece of work,” I said. “Are you the artist?”
“Flattered, but no. You don’t recognize me?”
I took a longer look at him, wracking my brain to see if he was a movie star I should have known at first sight. “I’m sorry, but I don’t.”
“I’m the Mayor of the Meatpacking District.”
Which, sadly, still meant nothing to my IMDB-searched memory. But damn if I wasn’t going to spend some time talking to someone with a title like that. Jenn and my friends continued on. I stayed seated next to him as he regaled me with pieces of the story of his life.
His given name is Roberto Monticello. He’s lived in the Meatpacking District for a quarter of a century and New York City for 40 years. A Cuban immigrant, Monticello has lived a life that could be measured well beyond the years he has lived. He has directed more than 50 plays and 28 films, including a documentary exposing the human trafficking of hundreds of children annually from Malaysia, Philippines and Cambodia to the greater New York City area. He spoke about the larger meaning of his work and how he used it to help others.
I was fascinated by Roberto. When I returned from the weekend, I did some digging and discovered I had only scratched the surface of the life this remarkable man has lived:
Swimming for his freedom in Guantanamo Bay at 17 Journeying to Ethiopia three times during the famine, once as a refugee camp director Surviving beatings in South America while traveling in pursuit of Nazi war criminals Living with Peruvian Indians in the Andes Recording human rights abuses in Afghanistan during the Russian presence Accompanying the U.N. at Hotel Rwanda Suffering 3 gun shot wounds, one in Guatemala, where he was investigating the killings of Native Indians; another, taking medicine to his home country of Cuba, and the third in Darfur (on his 4th trip there), where he was on a mission for the Red Cross Bringing boatloads of medication twice a year back to his home country, Cuba, and working to end the U.S. Embargo and Travel Ban there Winning the Film Humanitarian Award from the Queens Film Festival for his work in Darfur, Cuba, Serbia, Rwanda and Sri Lanka Recipient of the UNICEF Relief Dag Hammarshjold Medal
I stole a few more minutes from my friends and thanked Roberto for telling me his story. I asked him if I could make a portrait of him and he thankfully obliged. I knelt down, framed his red hat against the wall, and pressed the camera shutter twice, honored to have the opportunity to further the mayor’s story.
Mike Maney 